mercredi, août 15, 2007

Automotive embedded software industry is the most advanced industry in the world

Automotive embedded software industry is the most advanced industry in the world because no other industry has the constraints it has: "producing for mass market with very high security, environment, cost and reliability constraints"

* aerospace has greater security, environment and reliability constraints but is not mass market by a factor of 1000.
* telecom, PC and web industries are as much mass market as automotive but do not have security, environment and reliability constraints as high. If some telecom equipement, PC or web service/site does not work it won't kill you...

Every engineer should keep an eye on what's happening in the automotive industry.

This also applies to the automotive embedded software. I would advise to actively follow the AUTOSAR initiative supported by all the major automotive player.

http://autosar.org

AUTOSAR (AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture) is an open and standardized automotive software architecture, jointly developed by automobile manufacturers, suppliers and tool developers.

AUTOSAR

* paves the way for innovative electronic systems that further improve performance, safety and environmental friendliness
* is a strong global partnership that creates one common standard: "Cooperate on standards, compete on implementation"
* is a key enabling technology to manage the growing electrics/electronics complexity. It aims to be prepared for the upcoming technologies and to improve cost-efficiency without making any compromise with respect to quality
* facilitates the exchange and update of software and hardware over the service life of the vehicle